Bitcoin News

Story: Developers Clash Over New Bitcoin Data Restriction Proposal

By Dan Saada

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What the Soft Fork Proposes. Under Ohm’s proposal, OP_RETURN outputs—a transaction field that allows users to store small…

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The Motivation: Preventing Legal and Ethical Liability. According to the proposal, the primary motivation behind the temporary restrictions is to protect…

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Critics Warn of Censorship and Overreach. While the intent behind the proposal appears focused on protecting participants, it has sparked…

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Supporters Argue It’s Not Censorship. In response to the backlash, Ohm clarified that the proposal is not an attempt to censor users but…

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Implementation Timeline and Activation. If approved, the soft fork would activate at block height 934,864, estimated to occur around…

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What’s Next for Bitcoin Governance. The debate over the “Reduced Data Temporary Soft Fork” underscores the ongoing tension between…

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Bitcoin’s open-source developer community is facing a heated debate following a new Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) that aims to temporarily restrict how much arbitrary data…

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The proposal, authored by Dathon Ohm and published on October 24, 2025, introduces what he calls the “Reduced Data Temporary Soft Fork.

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Under Ohm’s proposal, OP_RETURN outputs—a transaction field that allows users to store small pieces of arbitrary data—would be capped at 83 bytes, significantly reducing the…

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The soft fork would also restrict undefined witness versions and disallow certain script operations that could otherwise enable complex or nonstandard data embedding.

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The proposal includes a self-expiration mechanism, automatically deactivating after roughly one year.

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According to the proposal, the primary motivation behind the temporary restrictions is to protect node operators from potential legal or ethical exposure.

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“If the blockchain contains content that is illegal to possess or distribute, node operators are forced to choose between violating the law or shutting down their node,” the…

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Supporters of the soft fork argue that the measure is a necessary emergency safeguard following the v30 update, which inadvertently made it easier to attach large data payloads…

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While the intent behind the proposal appears focused on protecting participants, it has sparked significant pushback from parts of the Bitcoin community.

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